Privacy and Terms of Use

Privacy & Terms of Use Statement

Thank you for visiting this site and reviewing our privacy and terms of use statement. We are strongly committed to maintaining the privacy of your personal information and the security of our computer systems. With respect to the collection, use and disclosure of personal information, we make every effort to ensure compliance with applicable Federal law, including, but not limited to, the Privacy Act of 1974, the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, and the Freedom of Information Act.

We do not collect or store any personally-identifiable information when you visit our site. The information we receive, depends upon what you provide when visiting our site, however all information provided and generated will be lost after either closing your browser or 30 minutes of inactivity.

If you visit our site to read or download information, we collect and store the following information:

The name of the domain from which you access the Internet (for example, aol.com if you are connecting from a personal computer account).

The date and time you access our site.

The Internet address of the website from which you linked directly to our site.

Anonymous summary demographic information about our visitors such as gender, age range, and areas of interest for adults over the age of 18. When you visit a website that has partnered with the Google Display Network, Google stores a number in your browser using a persistent cookie to remember your visits. This number uniquely identifies a web browser, not a specific person. Browsers may be associated with a demographic category, such as gender or age range, based on the sites that were visited. This demographic information is used to help us better understand our visitors' interests and needs to more effectively develop content to serve you.

The above information is used by software programs on our website to create summary statistics. We can then determine the number of visitors to the different sections of our site. We can also identify what information is of most and least interest, helping us make our site more useful to visitors.

If you identify yourself by sending an e-mail containing personal information:
You also may decide to send us personally-identifiable information, for example your mailing address, in an electronic mail message requesting that information be mailed to you. Information collected in this manner is used solely for responding to requests for information or records. We may forward your e-mail to other government employees who are better able to respond to you; however, Benefits.gov will protect this information from disclosure to the fullest extent of the law. Should you wish to file a request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), instructions are provided at https://www.dol.gov/dol/foia/guide6.htm.

Finally, the Privacy Act of 1974, as amended (5 U.S.C. 552a), requires us to notify you that the Privacy Act protects the information you are providing to us. The Privacy Act also requires we notify you that, in rare instances, we may have to disclose this registration information in accordance with published routine uses of these records, which can be found at: http://www.dol.gov/sol/privacy/intro.htm.

If you link to other sites:
Our website has many links to other sites. When you link to any of these sites, you are no longer on our site and are subject to the privacy policy of the new site.

Social Media and Third-Party Sites
In addition to Benefits.gov official website, we use social media and third party sites to provide Benefits.gov content in a different format that may be useful or interesting to you. When we use these sites, the information we provide is consistent with the intended purpose of the Benefits.gov website. No Personally Identifiable Information (PII) may be requested from or collected by Benefits.gov on social media sites. The privacy protection provided on social media and third party sites that are not a part of the Benefits.gov website may not be the same as the privacy protection given by Benefits.gov and described here.

Cookie Use Notice
On a limited number of our Web pages, we employ "cookies" to provide better service to our customers. We do not use cookies to collect any personal, identifying information from users or to track user activities beyond our website. We do not maintain copies of cookies on our website after you leave our website.

Cookies are small pieces of temporary data that are exchanged between a website and a user's computer which enable a "session," or "dialog," to be established between the two machines. With the session established, we are able to tailor responses (i.e., identify and provide you with the information you want) and help you traverse our Web pages in the most efficient and effective manner possible. The session ends when we do not receive further requests from your computer or you simply exit your browser.

We limit our use of cookies to "session cookies;" types of cookies that are temporarily stored in your computer's memory. Session cookies are normally deleted from your computer when you log off the computer or you exit the browser. Benefits.gov does not issue "persistent cookies," which are cookies that could be stored permanently on your workstation and reused each time you visit the Benefits.gov website. Some social media and third party sites that display information from Benefits.gov may use persistent cookie technology. Most Internet browsers automatically accept persistent cookies. Although using persistent cookies may create a better experience for you, these sites should also work without them. If you don't want to accept cookies, you can edit your browser's options to stop accepting persistent cookies or to prompt you before accepting a cookie from the websites you visit.

For security purposes and to ensure that this service remains available to all users, our website also employs software programs to monitor network traffic to identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise cause damage. Unauthorized attempts to upload information or change information on this service are strictly prohibited and may be punishable under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 and the National Information Infrastructure Protection Act of 1996.

Section 508

Section 508 requires the Department of Labor, along with all Federal agencies, to make electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities. We are constantly pursuing compliance with Section 508 specifications as set forth by the Federal government. Federal websites provided by the Department of Labor are subject to regulations requiring self-enforcement of Section 508 compliance.

When a webpage requires that an applet, plug-in or other application be used on the client system to interpret page content, the page must provide a link to the plug-in or applet a user needs in order to view that content. Links to applets, plug-ins or other applications are listed below:

We maintain this site to enhance public access to government benefits information. This is a service that is continually under development. While we try to keep the information timely and accurate, we make no guarantees of this. We will make an effort to correct errors brought to our attention.

The documents on this site contain hypertext pointers to information created and maintained by other public and private organizations. Please be aware that we do not control or guarantee the accuracy, relevance, timeliness, or completeness of this outside information. Further, the inclusion of pointers to particular items in hypertext is not intended to reflect their importance, nor is it intended to endorse any views expressed or products or services offered by the author of the reference or the organization operating the server on which the reference is maintained.

Translations of any materials into languages other than English are intended solely as a convenience to the non-English reading public. We have attempted to provide an accurate translation of the original material in English, but slight differences may exist. In most non-English documents, the original English document is identified and available for reference.

Best Web Browsers for Benefits.gov

Benefits.gov recommends you use the most up-to-date web browser available for the best user experience. Some features will not function on older browsers.

Recommended Web Browsers

Internet Explorer 9, 10, and 11

Firefox (latest major release and two prior releases)

Chrome (latest major release and two prior releases)

Safari 7, 8

Android Browser 4

Find out what browser your system has
To find out what browser version you're using:

For Internet Explorer and Chrome, select the icon on the top right of your browser window and look for "About."

For Firefox, choose "Help" and "About."

For Safari, click on "Safari" in your menu bar and click "About."

If you need to update your browser, you can download the correct version from the maker's website for free.